The Google & Microsoft lifestyle: a match made in hell

The War

There was once a time when being a heavy Google services user and a Microsoft fan was the easiest choice on the block. The boys in Redmond could provide a robust and productive operating system platform while the Mountain View search cowboys could back you up with web services. Now, the two companies are going head to head and it might just be causing a hellish nightmare for consumers.

Microsoft has been attacking Google with their now infamous “Don’t get Scroogled” campaign; the advertising strategy is carried out by picking on Google services and software, stating that the company makes money off of you by sharing your personal information with 3rd parties.

On Google’s home front, they are pulling services from with under Microsoft’s feet and refusing to build applications for the operating system giant’s latest platforms including Windows 8 and Windows Phone stating that:

“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8…”

– Clay Bavor, Google Apps Director

But like all fights between corporate giants, the consumers are the people being hurt in the mix. How easy is it for heavy Google services users to pick up Microsoft’s latest operating systems and get to work?

Comscore estimated that Google’s Gmail service was attracting just under 288 million unique visitors in October 2012, while Microsoft’s Hotmail/Outlook service was attracting around 286 million. This pits the number of active users between the two email services very close.

Are we willing to believe Google Director Clay Bavor’s statement that users are truly not to be found in great numbers on Windows Phone or Windows 8? Microsoft’s latest adoption rate for its PC operating system has been lacking behind Windows Vista and Windows 7, but it is still selling. Most likely, Google just isn’t willing to play nice with the boys in Redmond. That being said, the Redmond boys aren’t exactly sharing the playground at the moment (though they did at least add Google Talk support to Outlook.com).

The Users

So how are users actually being affected by Microsoft/Google War? Looking at a possible scenario, based on Google’s post popular services, we can construct a fictitious character (let’s call her Nina) and assume that she uses Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube.

Nina has decided to upgrade her current Windows 7 laptop to a Windows 8 Ultrabook hybrid (let’s say the Lenovo IdeaPad YOGA). After booting up the machine she heads to the Windows store to download her collection of Google applications.

Right away, on her search for an official Gmail application, she notices that there isn’t one. Other apps from smaller email hosting providers and even Yahoo, but there is no Google. Interesting that Yahoo is able to publish an application for the platform, but Google (one of the largest email services in the world) just doesn’t have time.

Nina can use the built in Windows 8 Mail application and she decides to go ahead and do so, but there is no push support for her account and she is limited to grabbing her email every 15 minutes – a bit troublesome since she wants to know exactly when her latest digital issue of Popular Mechanics is in, but she can deal with it.

Back in December of last year Google made a move to pull support for Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol, giving Microsoft just over a month to solve the problem. Currently, Microsoft is supporting Gmail’s IMAP protocol allowing users to receive their email (just not instantly via push).

In addition, Google chose to now support calDAV and cardDAV, two protocols not supported by Microsoft, to push calendar and contact information. As of now, Windows Phone and Windows 8 products do not support either although Windows Phone users who get the upcoming GDR2 update, will reportedly have this feature. Users can also opt for a third-party Gmail App that gives a near native like experience.

As a result of Microsoft and Google battling it out, Nina is left with an incomplete email service that won’t sync her contacts and calendar. Microsoft’s suggestions is to switch to their Outlook email service. Google’s suggestion is to… buy a Chromebook? The Mountain View company has not made it clear to Gmail users on Windows 8 what they should do, for now – they are in the cross fire.

Google Search applications are currently the only apps published by Google for Microsoft’s platforms. This makes Nina quite happy and she downloads the application and pins it to her Start Screen. She isn’t exactly happy with Microsoft’s decision to integrate Bing into the entire system, but for her, the Google application makes up for it. Same goes for other Google services like Voice or Maps, which need the assistance of third party apps.

Lastly Nina wants to sit back and watch some cat videos on YouTube and once again, there is no official Google application to do so. Luckily the world’s best YouTube client MetroTube (seriously, this isn’t an advertisement – it is awesome) is available for download.

The Future

As of now, the Microsoft ecosystem relies on third party applications like MetroTube, MyTube or MetroTalk to connect its users to core Google services. The problem begins to arise when Microsoft platform users cannot access Google protocols (for example: calendar and contacts).

Trying to live the Google/Microsoft lifestyle is currently viable thanks to 3rd party developers, like LazyWorm Applications, and their willingness to work with current Google APIs. But what would happen if Google tightened their YouTube API?

We can see this issue with the current Google+ API for developers – there really isn’t one. While basic access to Google+ is available, there isn’t a complete system for developers in place; this results in applications that simply serve as launchers (similar to a web bookmark).

To summarize, the two corporate technology giants are flinging shots at each other left and right. While Microsoft chooses to attack Google in advertisements to try and advance their Bing service and Windows Phone platform, Google chooses to restrict access to essential APIs and refuses to build applications for Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

This childish game first started growing out of hand when Google made a claim that Microsoft and Apple got “into bed together” to wage a “hostile, organized campaign against Android”. This “organized campaign” was the big patent war of 2012 in which the three companies battled for what they claimed was their own intellectual property.

A war between two of the major conglomerates will always have casualties, and unfortunately for us, this time we are the casualties. We aren’t yet at a state where it is impossible to use Google services on Microsoft platforms, but we are moving towards a stricter ecosystem world where we might see Googlers/Gmail users on one side and Bingers/Outlook users on the other.

We can only hope for the sake of technologies future and for the sake of innovation that the two companies can learn to work together in an ever expanding world of data.

A question to our Gmail users: How do you feel when using your Windows Phone or Windows 8 device? Do you feel restricted and has the wall that Google and Microsoft constructed ever make you feel like jumping the Windows ship and running to the Android platform?

Reader comments

The Google & Microsoft lifestyle: a match made in hell

My MS account is on my old gmail address which I used on WP7 a while back. I've moved everything across to outlook and skydrive etc, however thanks to microsoft's stupid system, there is no way I can move my app purchases in WP8 and Windows 8 across to my new outlook account, very annoying.

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Not trying to throw hindsight at you, but for others in a similar boat: you can rename your gmail-named MS account to a new Outlook email address (as opposed to setting up a new @outlook address).

The rename lets you keep your history, 25GB on skydrive (if you had that), etc. I've renamed my @live account to @outlook as well as renamed my wife's @gmail MS account to @outlook and it went very smoothly. Everything came over. Just needed to reset the WP devices, but WP8 makes it easier than WP7 because it lets you restore your app purchases all at once.

I've had enough with google. They used to be the innovated kids on the block. Now there are just kids on the block making trouble. I'm moving over to all Microsoft. There services are way more awesome anyway. Microsoft has always been willing to be inclusive and google is becoming exclusive. Same reason why apple can be annoying.

For me I'm stuck since my MS account is my @gmail.com account. I would have dropped google completely if I could cleanly migrate to @outlook.com or to my Microsoft hosted custom domain. I used to be impartial but google is using their power (user base) to thumb their nose at the platform that gave them all the users. Restricting services, not creating Win8 apps, its childish and IMHO short sighted. Wait for chromebooks to take off or secure a desktop platform a bit better before making this move, if that was the plan all along.

What services did Google restrict? He was pretty vague on that. As for not creating Win8 apps, why do you automatically assume they would? All their stuff is still easily available through the browser, same as it ever was.

You may ask yourself, how do i work this?
You may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was

You can easily switch that. Create a new alias with an @outlook.com domain. Then switch your primary alias to your new outlook.com alias. Next add your Gmail as a send and receive account. Viola. Now you have switched completely to outlook.

"But I'd have to factory reset my phone to do that, not willing, not yet. So just the aliases for me.. =/"

Having moved through MANY phones, you are making this out to be a bigger issue that it really is... Outside of Apps backup/reinstall and few login changes you could do this in a manner of a few minutes.

The last phone change I did was when I was testing the 928, and flipped everything on it to my personal MS account literally on the way to hitting the airport for Vegas on a dead run.

I use just enough google I could drown in a single flush. I would love for MS to refuse google chrome from installing its browser code in hidden folders. Also prevent voice from working on windows 7 and 8 operating systems. Then let them go "invest where the market is". F google.

Been on Android device before lumia 920, just used the Gmail and YouTube though. No Google+ for me and other services. I even use Bing on that device for Internet search.. Youtube is the only Google service I use nowadays. Heck, even MS is using YouTube. LOLz. :D

Those on Windows 8, there really isn't a problem. It's called IE10/11, and pinning the respective service to your Start Screen. The only downside is no offline access, but with the world so connected, and you kinda need a connection to even download your email, it shouldn't be that big of an issue.
Those one WP8, similar solution, but due to the size of the screen, you're a bit more limited since it defaults to the mobile site. Load up the desktop site, and the screen size at this point becomes a problem, but you do have all the updates.
If anything, all services that Google offer work best directly from their web pages, and not through apps that require updates before they have all the functions of the websites. I think this is one advantage of having a Windows 8 tablet is, you literally get the full web experience, no need for all these apps. You need to look for something on Youtube like Nina? Just put Youtube to your Start Screen. I'd say you get 100% of all the features of Youtube, since it is on the internet vs an app that constantly needs to be updated to catchup to any changes Youtube makes to its website. Same can be said with Facebook and another handful. If you really think about some of these apps, they're just wrappers for the webapps.

Google is just going to push people away from using their services if they try to restrict it more than it is already. I have an Android tablet but a Windows Phone and Win8 on my PC and frankly I should be able to access anything on any device. I've started to move more to outlook.com though and I mostly use the built-in mail for all my mail, not just outlook and gmail accounts.
I also prefer Bing and use it whenever I can. I do feel MS should make the new search function in Win 8.1 be able to use other search engines - which doesn't seem like it can just yet.

Well unlike others here I used the advantages of both here. I use more windows things however I still use some google things. When you limit yourself to one particular view...typically your outlook on things is skewed so I try to be partial to both parties and can see the advantages of both as a neccesity.

I don't see what the big deal is with Win8. Use Google services in Win8 just like you did in any other version of Windows. Who cares? Google has never made dedicated Google apps. If they want to give us less reason to use their service by not providing nice apps with push notifications then its their loss.

With outlook.com, there are a LOT of people that prefer it to even the richer clients like Outlook itself and Windows Mail built into Windows 8.

It is the first 'web' based email service that can compete head to head with rich clients, and most casual users outside of a corporate environment just don't need the hard core features of Office Outlook on the desktop.

(Besides, you can use it with your phone or at the library and get the same experience.)

This is so dumb. All you have to do to use Google stuff on MS platforms is open a freaking web browser. Is that so hard? Apparently so.

As for push email, I get it on my Windows Phone (7.5) from Gmail and all sorts of other places. It's DIRT SIMPLE. Just create an Outlook.com account and set up your other stuff to forward a copy of incoming emails to it. Done. This is neither rocket science nor the cataclysm you make it out to be.

I read the article. It doesn't mention email forwarding. Maybe you should read my comment. Email forwarding is simple and effective. When an email is sent to my Gmail account, it gets forwarded IMMEDIATELY to my Outlook.com account, which in turn makes it available on my phone. Within seconds! There is no 15 minute delay. Try it.

On Windows 8 or RT, you can fire up IE and have a full-screen web experience.

The only area where this war really hurts is for Windows Phone. Doing web on a smaller screen is do-able, but far from ideal. Also, Google has blocked some services by user-agent (IE) in the past. Hopefully they are done with those shenanigans, since WP8 runs IE10, a modern browser.

For most people this is hard to do. Tech is supposed to make stuff easy. For non geeks, this is to complicated. Its a new world, people used to use web browsers to get things done. Everything today is apps and services.

It doesn't change the fact that there are no native apps for any of their services except their retarded search, which none of us (most of us) want anyway. I don't like gmail anymore. It hasn't been good for like 5 years. It gets crappier and crappier.

Anyway, having native apps would leverage the features of Windows Phone/Windows8. Such as toast notifications (hah, these suck in WP..but whatever), live tiles, consistent user experience (finding settings, searching, fonts, etc..), Voice/Talk(Chat), blah blah google could all leverage features of Win8, but noo..it's all dumb politics. They think they can get the better of MS for workstation OS, cloud computing, office computing and so many other things that MS already has a strong foothold in.

At the end of the day, it's just businesses being business, but I like MS model better. They have ALWAYS been the company to allow consumers choices since the beginning, by partnering with different vendors. Apple and Google are ruining choices. Anyway, all of google services suck, except for the one they bought (YouTube).

One thing that Nina forgets is that apps are redundant when you have a decent browser. She could use IE, or even just download Chrome to her Yoga (assuming it's not the RT version), pin it to Start and live happily in Googleville forever.

I'm using google less these days, Internet Explorer on W8.1 is supriaingly fantastic, very fast. And through that I use bing naturally, not really had any real issues finding things on it. I still use chrome occasionally but i find myself using it less and less. And of course Skydrive and Hotmail are my natural choices.

Only Youtube and Google search, for everything else ---> Microsoft. I can use all MS services on iOS and Android (and Windows and Xbox), I can't use Google services on Windows Phone. I choose Microsoft services.

I use Gmail on my windows phone 8 and Windows 8 , but have been gradually moving away from GMail - to Yahoo and Outlook. If you can't support my platform, I will not use your services in long term - its that simple. Google is living in a fool's paradise if it thinks users will switch to Android just because a few google apps are not available. Heck, if Google is so childish, it will lose its bread-butter search customers to Bing - MS is already integrating bing tightly with its products.

I, for one, am glad I dumped GMail for Outlook - the transition was super easy. Althought it did take a really long time for Outlook to pull all of my (7yrs worth) mail from Google...other than that, it's seriously not worth hanging onto Google as there isn't anything spectactular about GMail.

Its sad to see Android having this mentality when they were in the same situation when on Apple board and broke away. I will still use Google services and platform friendly to both, but I have deterred being so dependent on Google services.

Do you have Google shares??? I live in South America and I can tell you. Google Maps puts my address 2 km. from my home, while Bing Maps puts it right at the door. Google FAIL # 1.

Same here with the SPAM on Gmail, REAL mail on Windows Live.
And BING... it does alright. At least you can differentiate the Ads from the search results. It's harder every day on google.
I use duckduckgo for my searchs.

Likewise, I dumped everything google but still use you tube and the occasional Google earth (Is there an alternative out there with Street view and actual pictures, etc?). After using Windows Phone and Google not supporting me I have this ill will towards that company.

same here.. since i have a windows phone i only uses bing and outlook.. bing is growing up und outlook was everytime the best way.
i hope they will shake their hands one time.. but hey! Without competition there wouldn't be so much new innovations in the mobile / IT / Computer-World.

Same here. Prefer Outlook now anyway. Search isn't too far off but I have to go to Google for some things such as being able to filter search results by date, which I use a lot. Used to like what Google did and the way they approached things, my opinion has slowly changed over the last few years.

Same here. Was a hard core Googler since the day Gmail came out, and Android user since the Verizon Droid 1. Drinking that delicious delicious Google cool-aid for years and loving every minute of it. Then Google Plus came out. I hopped right on and loved it. Then the profiles with real names enforcement came along. It's silly to use my real name on the Internet I thought. My profile was suspended, breaking many features of my Droid 4, and for a day it also broke Gmail. Of course Google Plus was no more. I'm also not allowed to have a user icon to this day on any services, and Latitude was broken for weeks. I appealed to Google, but it was useless. Needless to say I was heart broken. 7 plus years I was a Google Faithful only to be cast aside.

Deciding I needed a change, and not wanting to go back to an iPhone, I got the only WP 7 phone for Verizon, the Trophy. I was impressed with how well it ran considering it's specs. Change was in the wind at Google. It was time to jump ship. Eventually removed Chrome from all my computer, started using Bing more and more. Wow it's actually good! Outlook.com came out around that time and I got in day one. Wow it's REALLY GOOD and only gets better.

Same for me. Uninstalled chrome and set default search to Bing. Google provides some awesome services and applications but while they are purposefully ignoring my platforms of choice I cannot support them with my data.

yeah for lucky only use their search engine never liked g mail never was user friendly to me, is confusing gmail and a mess , i use yahoo mail and outlook more even just i like both mail systems also still having my mail in ovi and well never either used chrome

Agreed. Google seems far more like the bad guy here. Microsoft isn't doing itself any favours with the Scroogled campaign, but nonetheless, I still think Google comes out looking like the greater of the two evils.
This bickering is forcing consumers to pick a side, and I guess I'll side with Microsoft. Time to shut down Chrome and move to Internet Explorer. I need to migrate all my online accounts to use my Outlook address over my Gmail address. I wish I could find a subsitute for YouTube, but that isn't an option...
Anyways, once I switch browsers and email, the only Google product I'll be using, and again, that's because there really isn't any comparable alternative.

Same here. Google's behaviour in combination with the new Outlook.com lead me to start using my hotmail account full time again - no regrets. Gmail is now my "junk" mail. I've also 95% stopped using Google search, and now use Bing. Outlook is awesome and bing is great (I love the daily Bing images both on desktop and as my WP8 lock screen). Keep up the great work Microsoft!

I am still use Google services because I think Google provide better services than Microsoft services.
As WP user I miss Google services in my Lumia.

Both companies are fighting, Microsoft attacking Google and in response Google isn't providing any services to Microsoft users. So, I totally areed with last paragraph. I am planning to buy Nexus.
But I think world will be a better place if both company resolve their dispute and provide better services to their consumers.

+ 8.1, I have switched to Bing. And I never had any Gmail account, except the one provided by my university. Outlook is the best. And when can we get the updated Mail app shown in Build?? That's was awesome!

I use Gmail since sometime around 2004. but now only use it as a place to receive SPAM and to register to not really important site and of course I'm not sync it into my phone or windows 8. I forget when is last time I log in into Google+. still use google search If I can't find what I'm looking for in Bing(mostly in very specific search). not really use chrome lately. but my jobs force me to have all major browser installed. Too bad youtube was bought by google. youtube is the only google service I still used

What is so great about this is that you can happily switch. While it is true that there are some downsides to big corporations duking it out, the simple fact of the matter is that Bing and Hotmail/Outlook are awesome now because they had to compete with Google's search and gMail.
MS is a fast, nimble company now releasing software at a breakneck pace because Google and Apple forced it to be that way.
Just like Firefox moved the whole Web forward by bringing innovation back to browsers, in the end, competition is good for all of us. I consider Google to be a spyware company (actually, I'd say that's objective fact), and so I don't like to use their products. But the fact is, they make a lot of excellent products to spy on us with. And that makes their competitors make excellent products to compete with them. And so, we all win, overall.

Same here! Google's not gonna bully me into using their products where they decide. I chose Windows Phone and Windows 8 and if Google's not going to allow me to use its services on those platforms then I shall use the ones I have available! Who do they think they are?